If only they had an “Ask a Billboard Charts Fan” lifeline.
On the season premiere last night (Wednesday, July 23) of ABC’s Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, contestants Drew Carey and Aisha Tyler were cruising along, until they got to a question about the Hot 100.
The two stars (who each previously hosted Whose Line Is It Anyway?) had won $16,000 for their charities — La Maida Project and International Rescue Committee, respectively — when they were faced with the following question from host Jimmy Kimmel: “With a whopping 11, which of these singers has more #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 than the other three combined?”
The choices: “A: Whitney Houston / B: Celine Dion / C: Tina Turner / D: Britney Spears”
Carey and Tyler were originally on the right track. “I think it’s A or B,” Carey said. “I actually think it’s A or D,” Tyler countered. As they pondered the question further, they drifted toward Spears, given, in part, that Houston died in 2012.
They decided to ask the audience, who voted and settled on Spears (60%) as the consensus correct answer, followed by Houston (38%) and rounded out distantly by Dion (2%) and Turner (0%).
The pair trusted the audience and Tyler the delivered the fateful words: “Britney Spears, final answer.”
The correct answer then flashed in green … Whitney Houston.
“The answer rhymed with ‘itney’,” Kimmel consoled Carey and Tyler.
Unfortunately not the students of the Billboard charts that they needed to be for that particular question, the tandem learned that Houston achieved 11 career Hot 100 No. 1s. Spears has scored five; Dion, four; and Turner, one.
Houston’s 11 leaders, between 1985 and 1995: “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “Greatest Love of All,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional,” “Where Do Broken Hearts Go,” “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” “All the Man That I Need,” “I Will Always Love You” and “Exhale (Shoop Shoop).”
Spears has topped the Hot 100 with “…Baby One More Time,” “Womanizer,” “3,” “S&M” (with Rihanna) and “Hold It Against Me,” between 1999 and 2011.
Houston boasts the ninth-most No. 1s in the Hot 100’s 67-year history. The Beatles lead with 20, followed by Mariah Carey (19), Rihanna (14), Drake, Michael Jackson (13 each), Madonna, the Supremes and Taylor Swift (12 each). Janet Jackson and Stevie Wonder (10 each) have also each earned double-digit totals.
Despite their elimination, Carey and Tyler’s night ended on an important positive, as they received $32,000 for their charities.
Also good: the next Who Wants To Be a Millionaire contestants got their own Hot 100 question correct. Jeopardy host Ken Jennings and Kimmel frenemy Matt Damon knew that the briefest hit ever on the chart, Jack Black’s “Steve’s Lava Chicken,” is from A Minecraft Movie.
“We hear that a lot in my house,” Kimmel noted of the 34-second-long (or, short) hit.
